I creep quietly out of my corner, slowly lurking along the wall. No light falls upon me in the room, the crowded room, lleno de gente and I can't breathe. From what, I cannot discern, whether the disgusting scent of conformity is clogging my lungs and causing this knee-jerk reaction or whether it's that I truly cannot breathe, asphyxiated by invisible forces beyond my control.

For now, and I cackle insanely. Beyond my control for now.

Hand over hand, taking baby steps which grow as my confidence increases, I walk behind all of them, and they have their backs turned to me. I make no sound, befall no giving away of my carefully concealed plan while I skulk behind them. Overtaken by a wavy of giddy frenzy and exhilaration, I suddenly pull my hands from the anchor of the wall, dancing an improvisational, mocking jig behind their impassive backs. Their backs, all brand name clothes and artificially blonde hair, don't even sway with the swooshing of air my grand movements create. Coming down from my high, but looping, flipping and twisting effervescently as I fall, I reinstate my safe grip on the wall and hypocritically chastise myself for such actions, while truthfully I giggle with glee at them.

The end of the wall draws nearer, and my pace becomes even more rapid as the prize comes into view. Victory will be sweet, like sliced strawberries in a carton, the kind I put in milkshakes.

Suddenly, I am up, up, up, climbing up the steps, to the stage where I stand and my coronation begins. My crown weighs perfectly on my head, and though it is imperceptible to the naked eye, to the color-treated and hair-sprayed naked eye, I feel it there. I brace myself, clench my fists and smile winningly while I wait for the spotlight to be switched on, and there it is, bright light streaming upon me so hard I need to squint to see. I grin cockily, self-assuredly, at the audience who now faces me, identical shocked expressions on their dime-a-dozen faces. I wave sardonically as I am lifted high and high and they shrink below me. I was crowned and I am the winner in a race they thought they'd won, had been so sure they had no opponent in.